The gang stole thousands of pounds worth of telephone cables and equipment from the telephone exchange in London next door to Ritchie and Madonna's pub, The Punchbowl – possibly using the 9pm arrival of the couple on Wednesday as a cover.

As well as escaping with high-tech cables, telephone cards and other equipment, the gang also wrecked vital equipment at the exchange. It meant thousands of UK customers were unable to log on to the internet early yesterday.

NYnet said the theft of the network cards knocked BT networks across the UK out, affecting the North Yorkshire system which uses the telecommunication giant's exchanges via gateways at York and Harrogate.

Customers who got their internet service via York would have experienced a slow down or access problems while BT was carrying out repairs to the system, officials said.

But NYnet re-routed all its traffic via Harrogate, to take York out of the loop.

A spokesman said: "We had it back up and sorted in hours. Given the major internet crisis over the whole country, we think the fact that NYnet managed to resolve theirs in a very short time-frame is a positive."

Only a limited number of customers would have experienced the slow-down or problems starting the internet up, a spokesman added.

NYnet is the not-for-profit company set up by the county council and partners to provide fast internet access across North Yorkshire, with an initial focus on Scarborough.

The aim is for businesses in Scarborough to have for the first time the opportunity to compete in the same way as companies in more affluent urban areas, enjoying faster speeds than Sheffield or Leeds.

The goal is to emulate other small towns which made internet fortunes.